Warm baked oats on an autumn morning are a real treat. We’ve added chocolate for extra indulgence and they are just lovely with baked bananas and sticky dates.
Porridge oats are a great start to the day, they are a great source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. We love to add chopped dates to add fibre and natural sweetness.
My kids just love these baked oat pot and top them with yoghurt for an extra serving of protein.
Step 1: Preheat the oven. Put 3 ceramic pots on a baking tray. Or use a lined and greased loaf tin.
Step 2: To a blender add the oats, cocoa powder, dates, 1 banana, milk, egg, baking powder. Blend until smooth.
Step 3: Add a spoon of the mix to each pot, then top with half the chopped chocolate. Spoon the rest on top and sprinkle the remaining chocolate and a slice of banana to each pot. Bake for 20 minutes.
This is up there with one of our top 5 breakfasts. It is so delicious and incredibly nutritious, I urge you to give this recipe a go. We replaced the eggs in this classic Indian breakfast with a chickpea flour batter here to keep it plant based. Chickpea flour has been used in Asian cuisine for hundreds of years, it is also full of fibre, protein and many vitamins and minerals. Such a useful ingredient, we also use it to make fritters, socca bread and to bind falafel and bean burgers – have you tried cooking with it yet? We stock an organic bag which you can add to your next fruit and veg order.
Liz x
Ingredients (per omelette)
60g chickpea flour
150ml water
large pinch of salt
chilli flakes to taste (or even better, use chopped fresh green chilli)
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala (or any Indian spice blend you like)
1 salad tomato, finely chopped
2 tbsp finely chopped red onion or scallion
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander
1 tsp good oil for frying (we use rapeseed)
1 flatbread (we used tortilla bread here)
1 tbsp mango chutney (or any Indian chutney you like, or natural yoghurt)
Method
Whisk the chickpea flour and water together into a smooth batter. Then add the salt, chilli, turmeric and garam masala and whisk again.
Stir in the tomato, onion and coriander. Meanwhile, heat up a pancake pan over a medium heat.
Warm the flatbread on both sides in the dry pan, place on a plate. Then pour in the oil, swirl to coat the pan evenly. Pour the masala omelette mixture into the pan and swirl or spread in out with a spoon into a thin layer.
Be patient and let the omelette cook slowly until it is set and golden on the bottom and almost dried out on top. You should notice small bubbles forming and popping. Carefully loosen the omelette from the pan and flip with a spatular.
The second side should only take a minute. Spread the bread with the chutney then flip the omelette out on top. Roll up and enjoy whilst hot!
If you’ve made my autumn flavour kit from the blog and now you are wondering what to do with it, make these pumpkin spiced pancakes. They are fluffy, warmly spiced, sweet and so delicious! Even my pumpkin-hating kids like them! The trick with cooking really thick, soft, fluffy pancakes it to cook them low and slow, otherwise they’ll burn on the outside and be raw in the middle. Patience is key here! The other trick is to make the batter shortly before frying, you want the raising agent to work in the pan, not in the mixing bowl. Enjoy!
Liz x
Ingredients (makes around 9 pancakes)
150g flour
150g pumpkin puree (from a roasted pumpkin or butternut squash)
150ml milk (any milk you prefer, I use oat milk)
1 tbsp maple syrup (plus extra for serving)
1 heaped tsp of pumpkin spice mix (plus extra for serving) – check out the blog for our formula
2 tbsp baking powder
butter for frying and serving (we use the vegan naturli butter blocks, they are delicious, made from great ingredients and palm oil free)
Method
In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients and mix with a whisk to evenly spread the raising agents and spices. Then add the maple syrup, pumpkin purée and milk and mix to just combine. Careful not to over-mix!
Warm a pancake pan over a medium-low heat and melt a tsp of butter. Fry spoons of the batter in small batches. The batter will grow quite a lot so space the pancakes out. I like to cook just 3 at a time.
Fry on low until risen and golden brown underneath then carefully flip and fry the other side. You may wish to turn them a few times to ensure they are evenly cooked and no longer raw in the middle.
Serve warm with a smear of butter, a generous drizzle of maple syrup and a dusting of pumpkin spice mix. Enjoy!
Ok, we’re a little late to this trend, but if you are like me (wanting to eat oats regularly because they are so incredibly healthy, but fed up of porridge) you’ll appreciate this twist on a warm, sweet, oaty breakfast. It couldn’t be simpler really, blend oats with banana, milk, baking powder and a touch of honey and bake while you get ready for the day. You’ll end up with a sort of breakfast pudding that is set on the top and sides and beautifully runny in the middle. I’m sure you can come up with countless variations, but we are REALLY into blueberries right now. Did you know that we have sourced organic blueberries from Banner Berries right here in Ireland, and they come in compostable tubs!? Add some to your next order while they are in season and see what the fuss is about (we order extras and pop them straight into the freezer!).
Liz x
Ingredients (serves 2)
1 small mug of porridge oats
1 small mug of milk (any you like)
1 ripe banana
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1/2 tsp vanilla or other flavouring you like (try cocoa powder for chocolate, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom… a dollop of peanut butter?)
a couple of handfuls of blueberries (or any fruit you prefer – all summer berries work well as do sliced stone fruit, figs, apples, pears etc)
Method
Turn your oven on to 180C and gather your ingredients, a couple of large ramekins or oven safe bowls and a blender.
Blend the oats, milk, banana, baking powder, honey and vanilla into a smooth batter. Divide it between the ramekins/bowls, sprinkle each with a handful of blueberries and pop it into the oven to bake while you make coffee and get ready for the day.
After around 15-20 minutes, you should have 2 breakfast puddings ready to eat. they should be slightly risen and golden brown. Dig in with a spoon and find the delicious runny middle. Enjoy as it is or top with a dollop of yoghurt, nuts, seeds more fruit etc as you like.
Its the end of the summer holidays and back to school and work routines for most! If you are looking for ways to get a bit more veg into yours and/or your child’s lunch box then give these muffins a go. They are lightly sweetened and alongside a sandwich, some fruit and raw veggie sticks they are the perfect lunch. #backtoschool
They freeze really well so why not pop some in the freezer that are handy to defrost overnight, making filling the lunch box a little bit easier. #freezerstash
If you have kids get them to help make them, let them grate the courgette and carrot. Let them get used to cooking and baking with seasonal Irish vegetables and have a chat about where they are grown too. Cooking together creates great opportunities for learning about where our food comes from and why it’s important that we support our local farmers.
Lou 🙂
Makes 18 regular muffins – approx
350g Self raising flour or Plain flour with 3 teaspoons baking powder
This cake has wholesome organic oats, eggs, fruit, yoghurt topped with more oats, seeds and coconut – there’s a bit of sugar for good measure but perfect for a breakfast treat!
Its an easy one to put together, no fancy equipment needed just a mixing bowl, a jug and a couple of baking trays. You could bake the streusel on top of the cake but we prefer it separate and sprinkled on top of the yoghurt.
You can pick up most of the gorgeous organic ingredients in eco packaging in our online shop, see links below.
It makes 9 generous portions, make cake for breakfast.
Optional – topping 2 medium bananas sliced lengthways (Warning they will go brown in time, if you’re not keen on brown bananas leave them off.)
Method:
-Preheat your oven to 180°C.
For the granola streusel:
Line a large baking tray with parchment paper.
Add all the ingredients to a mixing bowl and work the butter into the dry ingredients with your fingers. Make sure there are no big lumps of butter.
Layer onto the baking tray and bake for 15 minutes. The streusel will look like a giant cookie, let it cool and then break up into pieces and put it into a bowl for later.
For the cake:
Line a 9×9 inch square tin with parchment paper.
Measure all the dry ingredients.
Sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, cinnamon and sugar into a large mixing bowl.
Add in the oats and give everything a good mix.
Add a small bit of flour to the blueberries and toss to coat.
Add the blueberries to the mixing bowl and gently fold in.
Add all the wet ingredients to a jug, the oil, yoghurt and eggs, mix well with a fork.
Pour the wet ingredients into the mixing bowl and mix until the flour is worked in, don’t over mix, some lumps are ok.
Pour into the square baking tray, top with sliced banana if using.
Bake for 25-30 mins. Check it’s cooked with a cocktail stick, if it comes out clean it’s done.
Allow to cool completely, then slice into 9 squares.
To seve:
Top a nice square slice of cake with organic yoghurt and top with a generous sprinkle of granola streusel.
Another recipe inspired by Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules, is this delicious, veg-forward breakfast. I LOVE having lots of vegetables for breakfast. Sautéed mushrooms, kale, and tomatoes on toast is probably my favourite. So when I re-visited ‘Summer Kitchens’, one of Olia’s brilliant books, and saw this puffed broccoli omelette I knew I had to make a plant based twist.
We have just added chickpea flour to our grocery section. It’s one of my favourite pantry ingredients, so useful for making fritters, socca bread, bhajis, vegan tortillas or quiches and egg free omelettes. To make it puffy, I just used bread soda activated with some apple cider vinegar. The results were delicious and I’ll be recreating this veggie breakfast over and over again using different seasonal vegetables. Of course it would be wonderful with our purple sprouting broccoli and I’m going to use leeks next time for sure! Don’t forget to tag us in your re-creations, we love to see the spin you put on our recipes.
Liz x
Ingredients (serves 2)
1/2 mug of gram flour
1/2 mug of water
1 tsp vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
black pepper to taste
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
sliced broccoli to cover frying pan
1 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Method
Start with the batter. The longer the chickpea flour has to re-hydrate, the better texture – you could even make the batter the night before and leave it covered overnight at room temperature to lightly ferment. Whisk together the flour, water, vinegar, salt and pepper. Wait to add the baking soda just before frying.
In a frying pan which has a lid, fry the broccoli with the olive oil, salt and pepper until just starting to take on some colour. Then spread the broccoli evenly over the base of the pan and turn the heat down to medium.
Add the baking soda to the chickpea flour batter and whisk it in – the batter should immediately start to fluff up. Quickly pour it over the broccoli and put the lid on the frying pan. This will ensure a crispy bottom and a fluffy, steamed top to your omelette.
After 3-5 minutes or so, the batter should be cooked through. You can test it by touching the top of the omelette, your finger should come off dry without batter.
Slice it into wedges and serve warm. It’s delicious with some juicy sliced tomatoes alongside too.
These muffins are so quick and easy to put together, completely delicious and a great way to use up over-ripe bananas. Despite being the most popular fruit in Ireland, with around 70 million being sold each year, about 25% of the bananas shipped to Ireland get thrown away!
Supermarkets are big culprits, as soon as bananas start getting brown spots on their skin, they are replaced with fresher green ones. But we are guilty at home too, us consumers routinely waste around 30% of the food we buy, imagine saving 30% on your food bill each week! As well as wasting our hard earned cash, think of the waste of resources it took to grow, harvest and transport our fresh produce. Wasted food also emits methane as it rots, a powerful greenhouse gas.
So next time you are looking at a bunch of brown, slightly squished bananas, why not make a quick batch of these muffins or pop them in the freezer (peeled and in chunks) to be used another day. Frozen bananas make the creamiest, sweetest smoothies and bananas pack a mighty nutritional punch. Full of potassium which lowers your blood pressure and starchy fibre to fill you up, moderate your blood sugar and feed your all-important gut microbes. Let’s go bananas for bananas!
Liz x
Ingredients (makes 12 muffins)
3 large, over-ripe bananas (or 4 smaller)
125ml olive oil (or any oil you prefer)
250ml oat milk (or any milk)
100g sugar (brown/white both work fine)
400g flour (we like a mix of white and whole meal)
3 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar (to help activate the soda)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
optional extras like chocolate chips, nuts, seeds, raisins, coconut flakes, crunchy sugar etc for topping the muffins or folding through the batter – this is where you can have fun and make them your own
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 175C and line a muffin try with 12 large muffin cases.
Peel 2 of the bananas and mash them in a large mixing bowl. Did you know you can eat the peels too? Reserve them for another recipe or pop them in the compost bin.
Add the oil, milk, sugar, lemon/vinegar and mix well to combine.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients – the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and any optional extras like nuts/seeds/chocolate/coconut/raisins etc.
Now tip the mixed dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients. Fold together until just combined. It’s very important here to not over mix and to work quickly. It doesn’t matter if there are a few dry lumps in the batter, just briefly mix together and then get on and get the muffins in the oven as soon as possible. This will ensure you get the lightest, fluffiest muffins. Over-mixing will activate the gluten in the flour and make them dense and chewy. Letting the mixture sit for too long will stop them from rising so much in the oven. So work quickly now.
Divide the batter into the 12 muffin cases and top with slices of the 3rd banana. Add additional extra toppings if you like. Some crunchy sugar is traditional or go for crushed walnuts, seeds or a square of chocolate.
Get the muffins into the centre of the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes or until beautifully risen and golden. This amount of batter should ensure you get those classic tasty muffin tops spilling over the muffin cases – arguably the best bit about a muffin. You’ll know they are done when a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.
Let the muffins cool slightly in the tin for 5 minutes then carefully take them out onto a cooling rack. Enjoy warm or cold – they should be light, fluffy and moist. Once completely cool, store in an airtight container and eat within 3 days or freeze to keep them fresh.
Celebrate the season with this warmly spiced, toasty, nutty granola. Our newly harvested kuri squashes are so delicious. Sweet, nutty and buttery, everything you want from a winter squash. Add some to your next order here, we anticipate they’ll be flying out of our packing shed. We also stock organic oats, maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, olive oil, nuts, linseeds and pumpkin seeds in compostables bags…everything you need to make this recipe. Liz x
Ingredients
500g porridge oats
200g pumpkin seeds
200g chopped nuts (I used hazelnuts this time, pecan nuts would be amazing)
50g linseeds
400g-ish of kuri squash, chopped and de-seeded (half a medium squash)
250ml maple syrup (or sweetener of choice) – add more if you prefer a sweeter granola
250ml olive oil (or oil of your choice)
1 tsp salt
3 tsp each of ground cinnamon and ginger
1/2 tsp each of ground nutmeg and cloves (optional)
Method
Preheat your oven to 200C and roast the chopped squash until soft (approx 20 minutes). Then turn your oven down to 150C.
Place the roasted squash into a deep bowl or jug with the maple syrup, olive oil, salt and spices. Blend until smooth with a stick blender.
Measure the oats, nuts and seeds into a large mixing bowl then pour over the spiced squash puree and mix well. Taste and add more syrup or spices if you like it sweeter or spicier.
4. Spread the mixture out onto large, lined baking trays and bake until crispy and golden. This can take over an hour depending on your oven. Keep an eye on the trays. Remove them from the oven every 15 minutes and stir the granola so that it gets evenly toasted.
5. Allow the granola to cool completely on the trays before storing in an airtight container. Enjoy with yoghurt or milk for breakfast or serve on smoothie bowl or ice cream… Homemade granola stays fresh for 2 weeks in an airtight container at room temperature.
Weekends are for brunching and here is one of our favourites. The combination of fresh, vibrant green pesto, soft, wobbly scrambled tofu and juicy, umami mushrooms is just perfect!
You can make your own pesto very easily if you have a food processor or blender – I used my kale and pumpkin seed pesto that I’m making on repeat this time – or you can of course use a ready made one for ease. We sell a few organic jars of pesto in the grocery section of our shop. The scramble is simply a gently sautéed pack of organic silken tofu seasoned with salt, pepper and some chopped sun-dried tomatoes. And those gorgeous, meaty mushrooms are marinated with our new packs of umami paste then grilled.
What’s your favourite brunch? Are you a sweet or savoury person? Let us know in the comments.
Cut bread and pop it in the toaster ready to go. Heat up a griddle pan (or fire up the grill in your oven).
Slice the mushrooms in half and mix them with the umami paste and a drizzle of olive oil in a bowl. Then push them onto skewers and place them in a hot griddle pan (or on a tray under your grill) to cook whilst you get on with the scramble.
Heat up a knob of butter (or tbsp of olive oil) in a medium-high heated frying pan. Open your pack of silken tofu, drain off any excess liquid and then pop it in the pan. Break it up gently with a wooden spoon or a spatular.
Season the scrambling tofu with salt and pepper and then add the chopped sun-dried tomatoes. Keep the scramble moving and cook it for 5 minutes or so until it’s warmed through, but don’t break it up too much. It’s nice when there are still some larger pieces.
Meanwhile turn the mushrooms in the grill to cook the other side and then toast the bread.
Spread the toast with a thick layer of pesto, then divide the scramble and mushrooms between the plates.
